


A Father-Son Thing

by Tierfal



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Crack, Family, Father-Son Relationship, Humor, M/M, The Talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-01
Updated: 2012-09-01
Packaged: 2017-11-13 07:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/500922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Van Hohenheim gives his elder son the Talk.</p><p>[Major spoilers for Brotherhood.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Father-Son Thing

**Author's Note:**

> brb, in love with the fact that there's an "Awkward Conversations" tag.

Nothing in four-hundred wide-ranging and extremely varied years could have prepared Van Hohenheim for this.

“You mean to tell me,” he says to Alphonse, slowly, taking care to enunciate, because there _must_ be a misunderstanding somewhere, “that my firstborn son has entered into a romantic relationship with a _man_ who is _twice_ his age and who used to be his _commanding officer_?”

Alphonse sets down his teacup and takes a bite of baklava. His eyes light up, and honey smears around his mouth and rolls down his fingers, leaving gleaming trails. He hasn’t quite redeveloped a knack for eating yet, but he seems to be enjoying every moment of the process so far.

“Pretty much,” he says in answer to the universe-altering query at hand. He is _much_ too calm about this. He must have foreseen it, then; and if he did, in _God’s_ name, why didn’t he _stop_ it while he could? “It’s kind of hypocritical of you to play the age difference card, though, given that Mom was a _civilization_ younger than you.”

Both of Hohenheim’s precious children have forsaken him. There is no hope.

“Couldn’t he at least have told me himself?” Hohenheim asks, attempting, rather fruitlessly, to minimize the plaintive tone in his voice.

He knows, of course, that Edward easily _could_ have—but he wouldn’t, even with a perfect opportunity laid out like a banquet at his feet. Edward is still exacting vengeance, day by day, for the childhood, the adolescence, the young adulthood that Hohenheim missed. The equivalency is that Ed won’t share any part of the life that he has now.

“I think he’s probably embarrassed,” Alphonse says, which causes Hohenheim to wonder briefly whether they’re talking about the same Edward Elric. “You should give him the Talk.” He licks honey from his fingers like a cat. Someone ought to tell him that it’s impolite to do that at the table.

“The what?” Hohenheim says.

“You know,” Alphonse says. “The _Talk_. The birds and the bees. The _you’re a man now_.” He takes the teacup handle in sticky fingers. “It’s a father-son thing.”

After all that trouble to avert an Apocalypse four and a half centuries in the making, Hohenheim is doomed.

 

 

“Edward?” he asks the book cover that has a gold antenna rising from the top.

“Go away,” Edward says.

Hohenheim is sorely tempted, but he holds his ground. “I need to talk to you.”

“So talk.”

“This is a library.”

“No shit. The books kind of give it away. Remember that for next time.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Hohenheim says to the book cover. “Perhaps we could talk elsewhere?”

Edward draws a deep breath, slams the book shut, fixes an unreadable look on Hohenheim, swings his feet off of the table, and stands. “Fine. I’m hungry anyway.” He leads the way through the stacks, and the moment they reach the foyer, he turns. “What do you want?”

Hohenheim searches his weak hand for a trump card. “Alphonse suggested that I speak to you. I think he’s… concerned.”

Edward’s gaze and voice are equally flat. “Concerned.”

“Yes,” Hohenheim says. Is he even _capable_ of this? Good Lord. If there is indeed a good Lord, he will hear Hohenheim’s fervent, if more or less unprecedented, prayers and benevolently intervene.

Hohenheim inhales, exhales, and summons his courage.

“Well—son—when a—” Oh, dear. He can’t say _when a man loves a woman_. Edward would attack him for using the word ‘love,’ for one thing, and for another, apparently there aren’t any women involved. “When—two—mature, consenting adults… develop… a rapport… with… fondness… and… mutual physical attraction…”

Edward stares at him. Hohenheim feels—exposed. Lonely. He misses Trisha every moment, but it’s worst at moments like _these_ , when he needs someone at his back, in his corner, on his side. An ally. A partner. A source of inextinguishable love.

That’s why he has to do this: she would, but she’s not here, and someone _must_. He owes it to the boys, and he owes it to her. He closes his eyes tightly and then opens them and meets Ed’s hot-edged, critical gaze.

“Edward, I want you to be careful as you pursue your interest in Colonel Mustang. Young love feels like the be-all and the end-all, which sometimes makes us reckless; and in our haste and excitement, we can forget to respect ourselves.”

Edward blinks. He blinks again. Hohenheim roots around in the nooks and crannies of his chest for a bit more bravery.

“If you do decide to have sexual intercourse with the colonel,” he says, “make sure that it’s a _decision_ , not just an impulse. Make sure that he cares for and appreciates you before you hang all of your hopes on him. You’re young. Take your time. Love yourself first and foremost, and _never_ let him—or anyone—pressure you if you’re the slightest bit unsure. It’s all right to be unsure. And I will be here if you ever need help or an explanation or encouragement, and I promise that I will not judge.”

Ed stares at him. The boy is stone-cold brilliant; is it possible he still doesn’t understand?

“Please don’t have casual sex,” Hohenheim says. “Your mother would roll over in her grave, and I would have an aneurysm up here. When—when you’re of the legal age—then I suppose—if you’re safe and cautious—”

“I can’t believe you actually went for it,” Edward says. “I owe Al a hell of a lot of money.”

Hohenheim looks at his son, his progeny, the greatest pride of his nigh-on-endless life.

“Pardon?” he says.

“You said ‘sex’ and everything.” Edward shrugs. “Honestly, I’m kinda… nah, I’m not _impressed_. Just surprised. You’ve got more balls than I bet on.” He sighs. “Anyway, I figured you’d hedge your way to something like that eventually if Al goaded you, so I told Roy I don’t put out on the first date. And I stuck to it, which wasn’t easy, ’cause he kept alternating between this really intense smoldering kind of look and puppy eyes like you wouldn’t _believe_.”

Hohenheim swallows. Evidently his vital functions are still operative.

Ed glances up, glances away, shoves both hands into his pockets, and scuffs his boot on the tiles. “I know what I’m doing, so you don’t have to get all weird and protective and shit. But… I mean, it’s… okay, I guess, if you do. It’s kind of—nice—that you give a crap.”

A lightswitch flicks on in a rather dusty portion of Hohenheim’s brain. “You’ve already lain with him.”

Edward flushes bright red to the roots of his hair and the tips of his ears. “Holy _shit_! Do you have to be blunt _and_ awkward _and_ old-fucking-fashioned all at the same time? I’m not _four_ , okay? Roy and I made out in a supply closet _months_ ago, and I would’ve fucked him then, but he stopped before we’d even gotten to second base and kept saying ‘We can’t, we can’t,’ and then he went on this long spiel about how when Al and I were restored and I’d retired from the military, he and I could reconsider, but he refused to put either of us in such a compromising position when we both had so much at stake, and we were too preoccupied to evaluate our own emotions. And I told him he was full of shit, but he wouldn’t budge, so I waited. And now Al’s restored, and I’m retired, and we reconsidered. I _thought it through_ , okay, and decided that I _do_ put out on the second date. So—so don’t look so fucking scandalized; nobody did anything wrong.”

Hohenheim draws several deep breaths. He shuts his eyes tightly again, and when he opens them, he tries with all his might to see a confident, intelligent, assertive young man instead of the small, helpless, delicate child he and Trisha ushered into an unspeakably dangerous world.

He smiles.

Then he stops smiling and clears his throat.

“But you _did_ use protecti—”

“ _Dad_!” Ed shouts at a positively ear-shattering volume. “ _Shut up about my sex life_!”

He storms out into the street muttering angrily, and Hohenheim lingers a while, attempting to be sheepishly apologetic enough for them both.

But Edward called him ‘Dad,’ in the end. And that means that he did something right.


End file.
